The Composition and Publication of Josephus'sBellum Iudaicum Book7

Abstract

We should like to have Josephus's history of the Jews from the great revolt to the thirteenth year of Domitian (Ant.20.267), if he ever managed to write such a work. Since we do not have it, we are compelled to depend on a few scattered references in Josephus and other writers, and on our ingenuity, for our knowledge of Jewish political history after August 70. Nonetheless, the first few years of the period after 70 are slightly less obscure than the succeeding years because we possess, in book 7 of Josephus'sBellum Iudaicum, an account, albeit sketchy, of the aftermath of the revolt. It is therefore somewhat surprising that book 7, with the exception of the Masada episode (252–406), has been neglected by modern scholarship. Those scholars who have discussed the book at all have limited their comments to general statements on the book's poor style, unusual inBell., or its date of composition. In fact,Bell.7 is problematic throughout. In the first part of the book, until Titus's return to Rome (119), Josephus introduces extraneous material into its main account with exceptional crudeness.